May 23, 2011

Frank Bailey tattles on Sarah. Apparently, she referred to some elderly male supporters as the "crazy old men's club." One of them gave her his old hat. It's not like she threw it in the trash in front of him. What would you do if an old man who loved you presented you with "his lucky fedora festooned with campaign buttons"?

You're Sarah Palin. An old man gives you his hat. You:

Wear it proudly!

Display it on a shelf in campaign headquarters.

Box it, tissue-wrapped, for display in some future presidential library.

81 comments:

Throw it away in front of people whom you trust have the good sense to not make a big deal out of it. I do something similar all the time. People leave things in my business that I have to dispose. It's no big deal. I've tossed dozens of hats, kid's toys, cell phones, wallets, and various other articles of clothing. Like a gaudy Christmas sweater from Grandma, you save the stuff a reasonable length of time, then discard it. Who cares if anyone sees it? You're not doing anything wrong.

Funny thing is, it's not even Frank's book. It's Jeannie Devon's book. She wrote the manuscript. She's the blogger at Mudflats who's been hating on Palin ever since Palin got picked by Johnnie Mac.

Much of the stuff in the book is overwrought. Frank got with Devon because he was upset, apparently, that Palin wouldn't give him a job at SarahPAC. Bailey wanted to be in the Big Time.

Now we know why Palin didn't hire him. He was a disloyal little ratfuck who used his access to Palin's email codes to compromise her and her family's privacy.

He's a swine. Not a hero. But the Left has to get its heroes where it can.

As for the book, the manuscript has been out since February. Most of its been either debunked or disregarded. But it's just irritating to read an "I Was Hitler's Toothbrush" Memoir by someone who claims to be acting out of some sort of damaged sense of integrity.

Well, that brought a smile. The Palin haters will crowd around this books thick as Democrats on a dog poop. That book review was an example of what happens when dogs eat their vomit. There are some sick souls in the comments to that review.

I'm going to post this pseudonymously because I know Frank and I know quite a bit about the Palin administration (though I don't know her "personally").

Some of the prose might be called "overrought" or even purple, some of the details are of he said/she said, but...a lot of it rings true.

Palin is absolutely brilliant in some ways, but she did come to dislike the whole Governor schtick with all of its duties and limitations. She was not a good manager. She will not be President.

A minor point--the fact that she didn't write her own op-eds and campaign staff wrote letters to the editor? Come on, FGS that's been done by just about everyone since shortly after the Lincoln Administration.

Look, Bailey's got a lot of email, and that's what the book is based on. And I'm not supporting the whole book because I haven't read it. But the parts that were leaked, a few things I have perosnal knowledge of. Like Palin accepting invitations, then canceling when she realized she'd be politically savaged, then denying she accepted them. That's what I'm talking about.

I think she's a giant, in some ways. But the role she has now is probably best suited for her talents. Showing up at the office 12 hours a days is not her forte. If all you have is an imago of her you're never going to buy anything that doesn't fit, I suppose.

Frank was a political tool--he was a typical stars-in-the-eyes type who was given a $100K job that he never could have aspired to without the unbelievable luck of hooking up with Palin and serving her any way he was told to.

That's why it took so long for him to get out, even after he was sure down in his bones that he was doing wrong. It's an old story. 'member John Edwards ass-kissing friend? Now he has a book out too. And I would be willing to bet, without even looking at it, that it's mostly true.

Imagine: Sarah Palin passes gas. She has yelled at people. She has misspelled words. Sometimes, she has even looked at pornography. She doesn't always say grace before she eats.

!!!!!

Let's have polls about the proper thing Palin should have done in every single aspect of her life, and then pretend, Oprah Winfrey style, that we're now somehow more proper, as we live lifes that couldn't bear one single solitary percent of the scrutiny on Palin.

BTW, personally, I don't like Sarah Palin, and most of her loud fanboys annoy the hell out of me. And I realize Althouse is not really being hard on her in this case... it's not really her I'm talking about.

It's the general nuttiness about those who are deranged about how awful she is. I get it... they want to scare anyone normal out of trying to be elected. Power is for the freakshows like Romney and Obama who would actually love to live under a microscope.

The is a long history of former staffers writing memoirs that exposed secrets and mysteries about politicians and Presidents. Once of the most famous was that of John George Nicolay who was one of the personal secretaries of President Abraham Lincoln. Not as famous as the other secretary John Hay, he was tasked with the dirty jobs in the Lincoln administration. He had to walk the Presidents rare clumbers, wipe the drool off of Thad’s harelip and make excuses to Mrs. Lincoln when old Abe was closeted with Frederick Douglas. So his memoir was quite savage.(No One Is A Hero To Their Valet, The History of Political Hachetjob Memoirs, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Penguin Press, 2011)

but the orchestrated attacks on her are more disturbing than any potential Palin presidency.

She'd be a disaster but we'd survive.

Good point. I don't think she be disaster, necessarily. If she had the right people helping, pros, she'd probably be okay.

The orchestrated attacks on Palin are emotionally based--they go far beyond just politics. You need to understand she is a symbol, a sharp stick in the eye of the Beltway, the NYTWaPo Urban Establishment. She reperesents the Silent Majority who are supposed to STFU, work, pay taxes and leave policy to the graduates of Yale and Harvard.

She drives them over the cliff, completely. She's a threat. Christ, if she gets any real power the next thing you know someone from U of Texas Law School will be on the Supreme Court.

The most baroque of the memoirs of political staffers was that of Lem Billings who was JFK’s closest aide. He had many duties such as scheduling the President’s “private” appointments which were primarily with female constituents or Italian American men who were dropping off large bags of money. He also had to clean up after Macaroni who was Caroline’s pony, spreading the chief executive’s butt cheeks as he was getting injected with amphetamines by “Dr. Feelgood” as well as washing the splooge off of the interns after they had “private” time with President Kennedy. His memoir was full of sex, drugs and rock and roll but the publication was squashed by Benjamin Bradlee of the Washington Post who remembered that his sister-in –law was murdered because she had talked too much.(No One Is A Hero To Their Valet, The History of Political Hachetjob Memoirs, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Penguin Press, 2011)

Christ, if she gets any real power the next thing you know someone from U of Texas Law School will be on the Supreme Court.

Someone from UT Law School has already been on the Supreme Court - Justice Tom Clark. Hopefully there will be more in the future, but right now the HYS lock on such posts is pretty strong, as some people on both sides of the aisle(like Justice Scalia) seem to prefer it. And you're not likely to find many Palin fans at UT (even among Republicans), so mentioning that university as somehow being Sarah Palin country is absurd.

The most influential member of US Grants staff was John Rawlins who served as his aide throughout the Civil War. Tasked with clipping his cigars and hiding the Whiskey, Rawlins rose to the rank of General and was in fact made the Secretary of War when Grant became President. Most thought this was a political payoff since Rawlins knew where the bodies were buried and kept all of Grants secrets. He was reported to be working on his memoirs which would have exposed the Grant Administrations corrupt activities when he was smothered on his sick bed by General William Tecumseh Sherman. Much like the time Paulie Walnuts smothered his mothers best friend. Crime Families are more alike than they are different.(No One Is A Hero To Their Valet, The History of Political Hachetjob Memoirs, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Penguin Press, 2011)

Petty people can't help but reveal that pettiness *publicly*, from time to time. There's no way they can keep the general public in dark about their mean nature. Even if all they do is have a smile which is just a bit forced and insincere, it always shows.

We've heard whispers from people like Bailey who claim Palin is such a mean, petty person; yet for the millions who have actually met her publicly, she's never been anything but gracious. I kinda think that proves something about her which the left cannot grasp or accept.

Meanwhile, their hero, Barry O, doesn't have a problem showing his own disdain for others publicly (like the time he secretly flipped off Hillary Clinton with the old middle-finger-raised-alongside-his-nose bit). Barry and the people who love him are the kind of snide, petty people they claim Palin is. Funny how that turns out, innit?

BTW, as with the John Edwards aid who wrote a tell-all book after the fact, I get the distinct impression (based on nothing more than my ability to read subtext) that Edwards' aid and Baily both had some romantic feelings for the politician they worked for. But the romantic feelings were never returned, and thus the turncoat behavior later.

One last thing: Edwards lied about having a happy marriage with a dying wife while he was getting it on with another staffer and fathering a love child. The worst Palin allegedly did was a bunch of trivial slights?

Does the left really think anyone will care about that garbage? The only people who'll believe it or care are those who'd never dream of voting for Palin anyway.

The rest of us are more concerned about having a POTUS who loves this country and wants to grow our economy.

Every person in Sarah Palin's intimate circle who is privy to any kind of indescretion by her can make a quick 100g if they run to the Enquirer with the story. That must take some of the zest out of unscheduled matinees or fights with the in-laws. If you are not a nut before you seek public office, just give it time.